In this every-other-month presentation, Professor Wolff presents insights and analysis on the decline of the capitalist system as evident in four key periods of U.S. history. From The Legacy of World War 2 from 1945-1974, to the petrodollar boom from 1974 to 2026, the rise of the global south since 1945, and China's relentless rise from 1945 to the present, Professor Wolff shows how these examples are evidence enough that it is time to do better than capitalism. The lecture ends with an overview of the possibilities for a future in which socialism is a viable replacement for the declining capitalism plaguing the world today.
Co-sponsored by Democracy at Work and Left Forum
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Professor Wolff's latest book, "Understanding Capitalism," is available for purchase now: Click Here
Thank you for this very clear summary of our post 1945 history, how the overwhelming economic supremacy was created and why and how it is now coming apart. The sequence of events — including the disastrous US war in Vietnam, the creation of the “petrodollar” etc.— are familiar but you’ve put them together in a way that tells a convincing story of the rise and fall of the US empire. And suggestions of what remains to be done, and why workers will have to meet greater challenges.
Marx said capitalism was declining in the nineteenth century . Instead it spread around the world very rapidly raising human life expectancy from 32 years to 80 years almost overnight after it had stood still for 10,000 years. Recently China switched to capitalism after socialism killed about 60 million people through slow starvation. About 1 billion people moved up from $1.89 a day to the middle class virtually overnight. Capitalism looks stronger than ever and Marxism looks stupider than ever.